


Ice Cream and Rotting Meat

by A_Quiet_Place



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ice Cream truck conversations, Mad Sweeney Needs a Hug (American Gods), Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, bad language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 20:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17432699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Quiet_Place/pseuds/A_Quiet_Place
Summary: Mad Sweeney and Laura Moon travel to see Ostara. Sweeney has some uncomfortable realizations





	Ice Cream and Rotting Meat

**Author's Note:**

> My first chocolate box! This was an interesting exercise in shipping for someone else and I had fun playing with the dynamic between these two characters. I had to watch the whole season again just to remember the details but it was worth it!

Mad Sweeney lets himself fall back with the reclining seat of the ice-cream truck until he is prone enough to be comfortable. He shivers despite the layers of blankets and clothing he has wrapped himself up in, and curls futilely onto his side trying to huddle for warmth.

Beside him, Laura Moon grips the steering wheel with cold dead hands. Flies buzz relentlessly around her head and a few are bold enough to try and land on her decaying skin, but not even their irritating, tickling legs are enough to distract her. Sweeney doubts she can even feel them. Her milky eyes are fixated on one distant beacon of light that only she can see.

The jovial whine of the ice-cream truck grinds on as she drives, like a one instrument parade announcing their arrival. It has not stopped playing since the accident and no amount of bashing or swearing will get it to stop.

“How long?” He grumbles, casting a tired glance towards Laura.

“An hour or so.” Laura replies, not shifting her focus.

“This better be the smoothest fucking hour.” He grumbles irritably. “I feel like shite beaten up in a bucket.”

“So no worse than usual, then, you big baby.”

“It's all fine for you, Dead Wife, you can't feel shite.”

Laura tares her gaze away from the horizon for a moment to give him the stink eye. It lacks her usual venom though, her thoughts are elsewhere -- far off in the distance, so he's likely safe from receiving a broken jaw, for now.

He grinds his teeth and peels his lips back into a grimacing smile in answer to her stare but she has already turned her gaze back to the horizon. He exhales sharply and tries to roll onto his side, his bundled form wriggling like an unhappy worm.

It's not just the sound of the truck or the sickening smell of rotten meat that permeates the confined space -– keeping him from resting. His thoughts, toxic as poison, have also coiled out of his skull to join in the shitty soup that is boiling over inside his head.

Their destination is nearing, but time seems to have slowed to a crawl. More than once he's entered some kind of ice-cream induced trance, where he's had an abundance of time to face some unpleasant realities on this hellish road-trip.

The first of those little epiphanies is, he no longer wants Laura to stay dead, (whichever) god help him. The turning point was the crash, where he had extended her the courtesy of returning the coin (and by the extension her un-life), and received an excellent punch to the face for the favor. The balance between them shifted after that.

They came to an uneasy truce, she listened while he told her about his time as a king. Actually listened – suspending her own disbelief. There are precious few in the world, divine or otherwise, who'd extend him that same courtesy.

The second being that he's going to have to call in a whole fuck load of debts to get Ostara to work her magic to bring Laura back from her status as decaying meat sack. It had been something about seeing her dead (again) after the ice-cream truck had flipped over, that had brought on a wave of guilt in him. The fact that Wednesday had made him do something so against his nature by killing her the first time was only part of it.

She's not Essie, he tells himself, despite their identical features. They are from a different time and a different place. Laura Moon is undeniably a woman of her own making, but in that, she and Essie share the same familiar spark. So he has to wonder, did Essie always look like Laura, or did he merge the two of them together in his mind somewhere along the way?

The thought concerns him more than it should.

Where Essie had her wiles, her penchant for mischief and forever-long devotion, Laura is … Laura is hard. She is numb to her own emotional pain to the point where she cares little for appearances. Unlike Essie, Sweeney can very easily tell Laura would kiss and fuck like she's fighting a battle.

Sweeney can't deny, he _really_ likes that about her.

Laura's head turns slightly.

“What's this resurrectionist like?” She interrupts his train of thought, making him blink away the dry itch of his eyeballs.

“Like sunshine and fucking daisies. Only the daisies are holding knives and the sun is trying to stab your eyes out.”

“You really got to work on your sales pitch there, Billy Mays.”

“You'd rather I lie?” Sweeney snorts a bit and tries once more to get comfortable.

“Isn't that your whole deal? You lie to get what you want, what you want is my gold coin.”

Sweeney bites his tongue to prevent himself from correcting her in the most colorful way he can manage.

“You don't have to trust me, but the way I see it, you don't have much of a choice. Unless you happen to know some other gobshite that can turn you from soup to human,” He watches her face crease into an annoyed expression. “No? Didn't think so, Essie.”

A silence stretches out between them.

“Who's Essie?”

Sweeney's mind goes unhelpfully blank. There are a million ways he can answer, some ruder than others, but for some reason he feels a sudden flood of aching nostalgia.

“An old friend. You look a lot like her.” He can't even manage to keep the loss from his voice. He clears his throat and turns his gaze out the window.

Laura doesn't reply.

Sweeney chances another glance at her. Her hands have relaxed on the wheel, and the tenseness in her posture has slackened considerably.

“That doesn't mean I like you.” He grumbles, closing his eyes.

“Did you fuck?”

The question makes him splutter.

“The fucks wrong with you, Dead Wife?”

“Sometimes you look at me like you want to,” She shrugs her tightly stitched shoulder casually.

Sweeney gapes at her for longer than he's proud of.

“No, I didn't fucking fuck her! And I'd sooner stick my dick in a hornets nest than your decayed soupy cunt.” She's not wrong, though.

He lets his head fall back against the seat, squeezing his eyes shut like the image hasn't already burned its way into his brain. Truthfully, if she weren't dead, the image would be more than appealing. Laura is the closest to Essie he will ever come again, but she's more violent, more.. commanding.  He had regretted not tasting Essie's flesh, but also at this moment, glad he hadn't. Essie would not have satisfied him like Laura would. 

“Pussy.” Laura replies smugly interrupting his train of thought.

Sweeney refuses to re-engage in the conversation. Instead he begins pulling at a rip in the seat cover until bits of the padding come free. He stuffs the foam into his ears to muffle both the sound of her voice if she decides to persist, and the musical siren call that has been slowly beckoning him to his insanity for the last five hours.

Beside him, Laura smiles to herself and puts her foot down a little harder on the gas.

What waits for them might very well be a recounting of his evil deed. Laura may even punch his heart out of his chest for his role in her death. He finds the notion isn't all that bad. He wonders idly if he will be allowed to see Essie once more after death. Will she bring him to her resting place as she had brought him to America?

He hopes so.

There is no love like the love of the mortals who believed enough to bring the gods and mythic creatures to this new world. It will be a sweet death if he can feel that again.

Sweeney manages a restless doze, his dreams are of Essie and Laura, switching lives, merging like no human should. They twist and meld until it is Laura's lips telling the tales of the Leprechaun and leaving him cream and bread.

His heart aches inside his chest even in his sleep.

He doesn't wake until Laura helpfully kicks the underside of his legs jolting him into consciousness. He bites his tongue sharply as he jerks upright, starring blearily around the unfamiliar scene.

His pulse speeds up when he realizes they have finally arrived at the Easter Manor. From here on out, his shaky control on the situation is going to be non-existent, and there is no fire in which to see his oncoming death.

There will be no running from this battle.


End file.
